


The Peggy Milbank Job

by InklingDancer



Category: Leverage, Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crossover, Everybody Lives, F/F, F/M, Gen, Multi, Team Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-12 00:47:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9048658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InklingDancer/pseuds/InklingDancer
Summary: Peggy caters an event in NYC that places her in danger. Mr. Quinn calls some friends for help, but Team Machine already has her number.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Radiolaria](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Radiolaria/gifts).



> Hope you enjoy it, Radiolaria! This was a fun prompt.

What happens is this:  
The machine spits out a new number: 562-51-3151. This number belongs to one Peggy Milbank, now of Boston. She is in town to cater an event over the weekend. Her boyfriend, one Mr. Quinn, is there as her assistant.  
Peggy is being targeted because of this event, which is being used as cover for an arms deal. She happened to see something she shouldn’t have, and she sends Quinn to investigate.  
He finds out that they’re some seriously bad people and he calls in Leverage to help out because he can’t do it by himself. So the team fly up from Boston and are there two hours later. Quinn shouldn’t really be surprised, because he’s seen this team perform miracles, but they really never cease to amaze him. 

Team Machine believes that it’s Quinn who’s out to kill her, and when he approaches her with a knife, Shaw, who’s undercover as a waitress, takes him down. When Peggy gets upset, Shaw tries to explain that “This man is a hired gun who’s trying to kill you.” Peggy just laughs it off and explains, “No, that’s my boyfriend.” Shaw just looks at her in a way that reminds Peggy of Parker – like she was simultaneously irritated with you and confused by the way you saw the world. “I don’t think you understand, ma’am; this man is very dangerous. You need to come with me; your life is in danger.” Peggy looks Shaw right in the eyes and tells her, “Thanks, but I’m not coming with you. I’m fine. My boyfriend slash assistant was just bringing the knife I asked him to get." When she sees that Shaw is still hesitating, her eyes harden and she adds, "Now back off, before I need to hit you with my frying pan.” (Which she would have done in about ten minutes, since that’s how much longer it would have taken her to figure out Shaw wasn’t actually a waitress. Really, Shaw gets off easy, given how Peggy takes to imposters in her kitchen.)

"Looks like we aren't the only ones watching Peggy and Quinn, Nate," Sophie says, watching the surveillance video.  
Eliot is sitting behind her, also watching the video. "That guy's CIA, or at least ex-CIA. It's a very distinctive follow pattern."  
Nate adds, "Do we ever see his face?"  
"No, he knows where the cameras are and does a very good job at avoiding them," Sophie replies.  
"Yeah, but New York is the most surveilled city in the world. There's got to be some angles his face appears on," Nate says, in that way he does when he knows he's right and he thinks no one else is noticing.  
Now Hardison pipes up: "Nate, man, I'm looking through all these feeds, and the only spots there could be a *shot* of his face being shown, those frames are missing."  
"What do you mean, missing?"  
"I mean," Hardison says, giving Nate a significant look, "someone's hacked the security cameras already and erased the footage of our guy."  
"All of it?" Sophie asks, at the same time as Nate says, "So our guy's not working alone."  
"Exactly," Hardison replies.  
"So we need to start following her ourselves," Nate decides. "Eliot, tail her. If she and Quinn split up, stick with her. I want you able to protect her if this threat manifests itself.”  
Eliot nods.  
Nate continues, “Parker, I want you to go to the event as a waitress, lunch should be starting soon. Eliot, see if you can’t take out Peggy’s tail. Hardison, trace that hacker and find out what we’re up against. Soph, we’re going to attend the event as Mr. Solnick and Ms. Akula.”  
“I can work with that,” Sophie replies. 

\---  
Hardison has set up base in the event’s computer room. Reese busts in, pointing his gun at Hardison. “Hands off the computer! Get out of the chair, slowly.”  
Hardison assumes he's an actual security guy and he's all like: “I’ve got a reasonable explanation I swear,” and John’s just not buying any of it.  
Reese taps his earpiece. "I've got him."  
Now Hardison is all like, oh snap, and starts babbling the way he does when he grifts, and John just looks the babbling man in front of him up and down.  
"This is the guy who was giving you so much trouble, Finch? He seems kind of young, even for you computer guys."  
Finch says something in his ear but Reese doesn't hear the end of it because the man in question, says quietly, "Eliot, he's got scary eyes, like you."  
"Is that so?" John asks bemusedly. "I take it you're talking to Eliot Spencer, your hitter?"  
"And a creepy-ass smile!” The person on the other side of the hacker’s comm said something that earned them an angry, “I am staying put! Just hurry up! The scary white dude in a bad suit is gonna shoot my black ass.”  
Reese just grinned. Now that Reese knew Spencer was coming, he just waited, making sure the hacker didn’t do anything rash.  
Spencer arrives, says hey, grins that grin, and punches him. Reese, of course, deflects most of the blow, and he retaliates with an attack of his own. Easily dodging this, Eliot chops at Reese's neck- a feint which leaves Reese's knee open for Eliot to kick. Reese rolls with the force of the blow, twisting his body to the side to keep the impact from breaking his knee. Forced to the ground, Reese lifts his hands up to block Eliot’s next blow, then rolls to the side as Eliot moves forward, allowing Eliot’s momentum to carry him forward so Reese can attack him from the back. Eliot ducks as Reese swings at his head, Eliot trapping his arm and twisting it around. He lands a punch to Reese’s stomach and is about to go in again when he hears Nate over the comms.  
“Eliot, stop.”  
Reese, still doubled over from Eliot’s blow, sees his opponent stop and is about to strike while he’s distracted, but then he hears Finch say, “Mr. Reese, stand down.” He straightens up, clutching at the spot where his attacker knocked the wind out of him.  
“What’s going on, Finch?” he asks as he taps his ear.  
“Mr. Reese, it appears that your opponent is on our side. Ms. Groves has uncovered information which shows that his team is trying to help the same person we are.”  
Reese hears Spencer receiving the same news. Apparently, he isn’t too pleased with it either. “You’re kidding,” he hears him say. “Fine, I’ll be right there.” Spencer disappears into the room where the hacker had been sitting and reemerges a second later with the other man. Spencer has the hacker walk in front of him while he keeps an eye on Reese from behind. Reese doesn’t blame him. If Spencer knows as much about Reese as Reese knows about Spencer, he knows not to turn his back on him. 

\---  
“Annie Kroy?”  
Nate turns around, trying to spot the person who has just come up to Sophie. The voice is sophisticated and a little unsure, belonging to a bespectacled man with a limp. Sophie, for her part, is playing it cool and ignoring it as she talked to whomever she was with. She excused herself from the conversation so that she could move over to the man in the glasses without blowing her cover.  
“Mr. Wren!” Sophie exclaims, fully in her Annie Kroy persona. “So good to see you again. How is your business going?”  
“And the same to you, Ms. Kroy.” He looks over to where Nate is standing. “I saw you with Nathan Ford earlier. Are the two of you here together?”  
It comes out in their conversation, through some skillful grifting on Sophie’s part (and some obnoxious grifting on Nate’s) that both teams are on the same side. So Nate and Finch call off their respective hitters, and resolve to work together. 

\---  
The Leverage team goes undercover at the event, saves Peggy and Finch both, but manage to let the bad guy know that they’re on to him. There’s a shootout between the bad guys and Shaw and Reese. Eliot stays out of their way for the most part, not willing to pick up a gun himself. He later doubles back because he dropped the fake ID Hardison made for him. That’s when the cops show up (“Really?” Hardison asks him later. “That was like two hours ago.” “Yeah, well, cops are dumb,” Parker replies matter-of-factly. “Except for Detective Carter. She’s like a nicer Nate.”) and bring him in for questioning. Eliot would have just escaped, except the detective that showed up with the officers was one of the two that Harold Finch had said were working with them, a Det. Joss Carter. So he goes downtown with them, and sits in interrogation for an hour before Carter comes in and says, “You’re free to go.” Eliot figures Hardison pulled some strings and only later finds out the real story.

Reese catches up to Carter at the precinct. She’s been holding Spencer there for questioning after their attempt to stop the bad guys went wrong. Hardison had offered to get him out of there with his lawyer act, but Reese had offered to talk to Carter instead.  
Joss is not happy. "John, you want me to just let this guy go? I found him at the scene of a murder."  
"You have no idea," John mutters.  
"What?"  
"Never mind. He's with us, Joss."  
"He helping us on this?"  
"He does what we do. More or less."  
Carter fixes him with a hard stare. "Fine. But don't let him get in the way of my murder investigation, alright?  
"I'll keep an eye on him, I promise," John says. “Thanks, Carter.”  
“Don’t mention it,” Joss says, wryly. “See you at home.”

Eliot's escorted outside by the other detective that is on their side, Lionel Fusco.  
“Now, don’t go doing anything stupid,” the detective warns. “Carter don’t like it when I shoot people to protect her, but I’ve done it before and if you cause trouble for her, I’ll do it again. Understood?” He looks into Eliot’s eyes and finds a lot more there than he expected. It’s like looking into Reese’s eyes, and Fusco doesn’t want to think about what that implies. Instead he gives Spencer his best “tough guy” face, and waits for him to leave before heading back inside the precinct. “Geez Carter,” he says when he gets back to his desk. “Your boy back there was quite a piece of work. Where’d you find him?”  
“You don’t want to know, Fusco,” Carter said, smiling at her partner’s usual understatement and going back to the report she had to write to explain why she let the suspect go. John and Harold certainly had a way of making life interesting.

\---  
Team Leverage sets up Carter and Fusco arrest all the bad guys, Team Leverage sets up the arms dealer so he goes to prison, and everyone’s happy. Root manages to make Eliot and Shaw talk to each other without hurting each other. While they disagree on how and when guns should be used, they get along surprisingly well. Turns out they’ve both worked in a lot of the same places and they’re able to bond over cuisine. Eliot offers to make some authentic Persian food, and Shaw tells him that if he gets it right, he’s invited to cook for her and Root’s wedding. Peggy overhears this and threatens to crash the party if she doesn’t get to be their caterer. Shaw agrees to a compromise: Eliot can teach Peggy how to cook it, and maybe help out in the kitchen, “If,” Shaw adds, “you can play nice and listen to Peggy.” She and Peggy move into discussing what Root would like to eat, the woman herself having disappeared after she made sure the hitters had connected. Eliot walks over to her; she is sitting in a corner with Hardison, vigorously debating something that Eliot assumed was hacker speak for “kick the bad guys’ asses”. He notes Harold occasionally throwing out a comment over his shoulder, and the other two hackers good-naturedly ignoring him. He leans over and gives Hardison a peck on the cheek. “Where’s Parker?” he asks.  
Hardison says, “She’s talking to John. He might be showing her some new takedown techniques though, so you might want to be careful going into the other room.” He squeezes Eliot’s hand and gives him a smile as he resumes his debate with Root.  
Eliot wanders past where Sophie, Nate, and Finch are – loudly – discussing the finer points of hiding your identity while moving through NYC’s socialite scene. He keeps an eye out for the blond streak that meant he is about to get tackled. He still manages to miss her coming in from the other side and jumping on him, wrapping her legs around his waist.  
“Oh goodie, Eliot’s here! Reese’s Cup, show him what you showed me,” she says excitedly, tugging on John’s sleeve.  
“Parker, that’s not his n-“ Eliot breaks off when he sees Reese smile. “Okay, Parker, show me what you’ve learned.” He makes the mistake of glancing over to where Detective Carter is sitting with a cup of coffee, watching them practice.  
Carter’s laugh is heard through the whole apartment as Parker tackles Eliot and takes him down in one sweep.

**Author's Note:**

> I really liked writing these teams together and I'm gonna try to write them more in the future.  
> Also: yes, I have jumped into the Peggy/Quinn canoe and no, I am not ashamed.


End file.
